Whether you’ve always been close, or wish you got along better, here’s how to bolster your connection.
Sisters Audrey Findlay, 75, and Barbara Rowe, 63, start every weekday with an 8 a.m. phone call. An hour or so later, they head to work together at Findlay Rowe, the gift shop they opened 12 years ago. (Previously, they worked at the same health care company for 13 years, where Ms. Findlay was the general manager and Ms. Rowe was the payroll manager.)
At 5 or 6 p.m., the sisters leave work and head to their homes — four houses apart. And after dinner, they reconvene for an hourlong stroll, slipping easily into what their adult children (they have nine between them) affectionately call their “twin talk.”
“One of us will begin a sentence, not finish it, and the other will already be answering,” Ms. Findlay said.
The sisters do have their arguments, as would be expected from two people who frequently spend the bulk of their days together. But they are committed to staying close and being there for each other.
“Our dad was an orphan, and he felt very strongly about family,” Ms. Rowe said. “We can have a knock-down, drag-out fight, and the next day it’s like: ‘Well, where are we going to dinner?’”
More than 80 percent of Americans grow up with at least one sibling, and research suggests those relationships can offer benefits well into adulthood. A 2019 study that focused on people in their mid-60s, for example, found that warmth between adult siblings may provide a buffer against loneliness and help boost well-being.
Read more at The New York Times.
